The latest data from NOAA says that during the last four weeks, La Niña has weakened considerably across the Pacific Ocean and is expected to transition to ENSO-neutral conditions during March-May 2012. Collectively, the oceanic and atmospheric patterns reflect a weak-to moderate strength La Niña. Therefore the increased bad weather cannot be blamed on a naturally occurring cycle that is in decline.

It appears that New Zealand has inherited the BBC's failed sceptic. Only a fully-fledged climate change denier could lie so proficiently in order to keep the public in the dark. It's nothing new though... five years ago Daniel Corbett was peddling the same line, saying that the adverse changes in weather are due to El Niño:

I sometimes despair at the idiocy of our news media. They are clearly being controlled by the very industries that are responsible for destroying our environment. I cannot even recall the last time there was a level headed and reality based discussion on TV about climate change and its detrimental effects on our planet.

Unfortunately the news media is a joke. The fact that they're completely unwilling to inform the public properly about the largest catastrophe we face would be funny if the circumstances weren't so damn serious.

Still don't believe there's a problem huh? Well here's what the real experts say:

On the issue of global warming and its causes, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated in its most recent assessment report that "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. "This statement was based on a vast array of evidence from observations, as well as our understanding of the physics of the atmosphere, ocean and land.

Globally, the biggest contribution to greenhouse gases is from carbon dioxide, which is emitted when fossil fuels are burnt for their energy. In New Zealand the emission of methane from agriculture is also a significant contribution to our local emissions.

1.4.2.1 Attributing regional temperature change: It is likely that there has been a substantial anthropogenic contribution to surface temperature increases averaged over each continent except Antarctica since the middle of the 20th century (Hegerl et al., 2007, Section 9.4.2). Statistically significant regional warming trends over the last 50 and 30 years are found in many regions of the globe (Spagnoli et al., 2002; Karoly and Wu, 2005; Karoly and Stott, 2006; Knutson et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2006; Trenberth et al., 2007, Figure 3.9). These warming trends are consistent with the response to increasing greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols and likely cannot be explained by natural internal climate variations or the response to changes in natural external forcing (solar irradiance and volcanoes).

We've known for a long time that manmade climate change is having a detrimental effect on our weather. The fact that Daniel Corbett completely ignored the scientific research and expert diagnosis on the matter and instead rattled on about everything but Climate Change clearly shows that he's a climate change denier. He therefore has no right to call himself a meteorologist.